The Case for a Creator, Chapter 3 Strobel’s first interviewee is Jonathan Wells, author of the polemic Icons of Evolution. Icons attacks evolutionary theory by seeking to discredit what are, allegedly, its best-known supporting lines of evidence – its “icons” – such as the Miller-Urey experiment, Archaeopteryx, and the Cambrian Explosion. We’ll get to that soon, but first I have to address what, to Strobel, must have been a bit of awkwardness. Virtually unique among modern advocates of ID, Wells… Read more

By Sarah Braasch When I was about seven years old I almost died. It wasn’t the only time I almost died, but it was one of my most colorful near death experiences. I had acquired some sort of flu bug or food poisoning or I don’t know what, but my mother, in her either infinite ignorance or indifference, failed to procure anything in the way of medical attention for her ailing child. In all fairness, at first, I attempted to… Read more

Tomorrow, a new guest author will be making her debut on Daylight Atheism. I’m particularly proud of being able to feature her work here, and once I’ve introduced her, I hope you’ll see why. I first heard of Sarah Braasch through the Freedom from Religion Foundation, where she worked as a legal intern, after coming across two outstanding essays of hers in Freethought Today: The Real Religious Terrorism, about her upbringing as a Jehovah’s Witness and how she broke away,… Read more

If you’ve been following the news, you already know that Dr. George Tiller, one of only a handful of doctors left in the United States who perform late-term abortions, was murdered this week. A suspect, Scott Roeder, is already in custody. Since the election of Barack Obama, there’s been a noticeable upsurge in right-wing terrorism. This frightening trend tracks the evolution of the American right in general, which is becoming smaller, more insular, and more ideologically rigid, and its language… Read more

I’m no PZ Myers, but I’ve always wanted to try my hand at stuffing a ballot box, and now I have an opportunity. The science and culture blog 3 Quarks Daily has officially begun the voting for its 2009 Science Prize, and I’m pleased to announce that two posts from Daylight Atheism are in the running! Here are my two entries: The Age of Wonder Bands of Iron The voting began today and closes in one week, on June 8…. Read more

Hello Quixote, In reference to your list of reasons why people become atheists or theists, I have to disagree. I don’t think most of those are the initial reasons why people choose one or the other. Many of them are common causes that are frequently taken up by people on one side or the other, or are shared aspects of membership in those communities, it’s true. But I don’t think people become atheists because they have more fun than theists… Read more

It’s not only professional philosophers and theologians who have an opinion on matters touching the sacred. Sometimes, gold-jewelry-wearing, mohawk-having, former ’80s television and movie action stars have words of wisdom to express on these weighty matters. Like, for instance, Mr. T, who recently gave an interview to Bizarre magazine in which he made a very interesting, and unintentionally revealing, comment. The interviewer asked T if he’d ever seen a UFO, to which he responded: I’m a Christian – I really… Read more

The story goes that the renowned physicist Richard Feynman was once asked to summarize the most important finding of modern science in a single sentence. Feynman replied, “The universe is made of atoms.” Although there are many other scientific discoveries that are arguably of equal importance, Feynman’s choice makes a lot of sense. The discovery of atoms is so familiar to us that it’s easy to overlook its breathtaking significance. We know, at the smallest scale where it still makes… Read more

Last month, in “Dreams of a Better World”, I considered some of the immediate problems humanity could solve if we had the collective will to do so. I want to continue that theme in this post, but from a longer perspective. Historically, humanity’s knowledge has exceeded its wisdom. As soon as we invent a new technology, we begin adopting it on a wide scale, without asking whether we should or what the consequences might be. Many of our most pressing… Read more

The outgoing Archbishop of Westminster, Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, had some choice words for atheists at the ceremony this week to install his successor: “What is most crucial is the prayer that we express every day in the Our Father, when we say ‘deliver us from evil’. The evil we ask to be delivered from is not essentially the evil of sin, though that is clear, but in the mind of Jesus it is more importantly a loss of faith. For Jesus,… Read more